Sometimes things aren’t just one thing, they’re another thing. This sentence structure (“It’s not just this – it’s that”) has become so common in AI-generated sentences that it’s now not just a clue, but almost a guarantee that the sentence might be synthetic.
That’s why when I saw Barron’s report on how this sentence structure is dramatically increasing in corporate communications, I was not only intrigued, but very entertaining. The report not only described the prevalence of this phrase in corporate communications, but also scanned market intelligence firm AlphaSense’s database to find out how often the phrase was used in corporate news releases, earnings reports, and government filings.
According to Barron’s, this sentence structure isn’t just a quirk of corporate communication; it’s pervasive, increasing more than fourfold from around 50 mentions in 2023 to more than 200 uses in 2025.
It’s not just the data that shows this. We also found some examples from the past year.
“In 2025, AI will be more than just a tool; it will be a collaborator.” (Cisco) “The future of autonomy isn’t just in front of us, it’s already here.” (Accenture) “DevOps teams aren’t just managing deployment, they’re also managing security compliance and cloud spend.” (Workday) “These systems aren’t just performing tasks; they’re learning, adapting, and collaborating.” (McKinsey) “When Bill founded Microsoft, he envisioned not just a software company, but a software factory that wasn’t constrained by a single product or category.” (Satya Nadella in the Microsoft blog post) “It’s not just about building tools for specific roles or tasks. It’s about building tools that allow everyone to create their own tools.” (Same Microsoft blog post.) “80 “Imagine if all 100 million people could summon researchers…to not only obtain information, but to use their expertise to do things that benefit them.” (Still, same Microsoft blog post.)
It’s no coincidence that generative AI tools use this phrase so often. This is a reflection of our writing in which these tools have been trained (without our permission, I might add, which is not only an insult to the writer, but a violation). And it’s not just the structure of this sentence. Currently, em dashes are also considered instructions in AI-generated text.
This isn’t just an interesting trend. It symbolizes how much these companies rely on AI (though we can’t say for sure if the message above is AI-powered). So the next time you see a sentence like this, remember that it might be a sign of something bigger than just a catchy construction.
